Top award for best of the worse

While it's true we all like this game it's also true this is the worse managed game around and possibly ever in on-line gaming.

I'm an on-line games vet having played so many of the games out including just about all the top games as well as many of the bad ones. I've never ever experienced anything like sl and how dreadfully bad it is as far as it's bugs and how poorly it's management (Linden) keeps it.

It seems like it's one major thing after another. Constant daily bugs, one after another. In all games there are problems, this goes without saying but in sl it's a way of life. But the worse part in sl is once there's a problem-and we all know this is a major understatment- Linden either doesn't fix it, takes forever to fix it or while fixing it causes other major problems.

You can compare fixing anything here by updates as having side effects. They bring in an update to fix one thing and it breaks a few others while doing so. No one can deny this is so true. Updates have been killing this game for a very long time now. This is why no one wants to download an update and when it's a optional update most won't touch it because they know bad things happen when they use these updates.

All this is incredible but true. If there were two categories in the gaming worlds award segment as the winner for the worse bugged riddled game and worse devs and game management teams, both sl and Linden would take that honor and it's award each and every year. Actually, they would name the awards after them respectively and rightly so.

Linden needs to understand that their spammed lines of "We're trying the best we can" and "Please be patient" can only go so far and more importantly, have worn very thin due to their constant daily use on it's players.

Well... they are conducting a survey.

And they're holding bug triage meetings.

And they have a voting tool for determining which bugs to fix.

And they have a support system for people to file support tickets.

And bug reporting is built into the client software.

However...

All not-so-glowing comments will be tabbed out of the survey.

And bug triage meetings are just one more meeting in a meeting culture.

And why vote on all the things that will never get fixed anyway.

And the purpose of the support portal is to close out support tickets as quickly as possible even if that means the problem goes unresolved.

And why report a bug which will then have to be voted on and then possibly assigned to a bug triage meeting which will never get beyond discussing the bug.

I think it's a great system. It's why I spend 70-percent less per month on Second Life than when I started nearly three-years ago.

SL is not a game, it's sim. Not disagreeing with what you said, but it's not a game.
What online gaming I have had experience with has all been bad, except SL. And it wasn't the game/sim, it was the other players, you think griefing is bad on SL it's 10x worse in any other online game/sim I have played.

I do agree it is overly buggy. The Lindens need to step back and do nothing but fix bugs for their next few updates, then worry about introducing new stuff.

But bug fixing isn't glamorous. It's more exciting to add something that will break during the following update. People who work on bug fixes don't get to go to the new features meetings and drink the good coffee.

Here's a handy infographic
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/06/28/the-bug-fixing-adventures-continue/
Gosh, they sure fixed a lot of bugs didn't they? The downside is we have no idea if these were major fixes (bug squashing) or simply correcting typos (which have appeared as "fixes" in the comments for new versions).

But rest assured there's a meeting to discuss the upcoming meeting to determine the bug triage meeting schedule. The coffee will be Kona Blend. Yummy.

My god, do i agree with the greifing statement, I played LineageII and didnt last too long, the griefing was unbelievable. This is kindergarden compared to some of the other games out there.

I may have only been here a short time but I don't think this is the worst managed game around. But then I've always considered this to be a virtual world more than a game.

I think for the worst managed game around Star Wars Galaxies holds that title especially when SOE rolled out the NGE that more or less killed the game on the day it when live and veteran players left in droves, although there now quickly trying to remedy that situation. But just head over to the SWG forums at SOE and you can read all about it But yet their other franchise Everquest goes from strength to stength with each new update.

waaahh waaahh

How about one of the worst managed companies with the worst customer service period?

I'm not sure LL even comes close to Dell for that honor....

Nope.. have to say Lineage 1 comes close to that. They closed the forums, then re-opened them only to the people who had been there 2 years ago.. no new accounts allowed.

They have a special button in the client to report someone you think is a bot/problem/griefer/wrong lanuage. If they happen to look into it, and you get suspended, you can't even question the suspension until it's over, and then they will tell you that they can't find the records since the suspension is over.

At least in here, you can talk to the in world Lindens now and again. They tell you what is happening in a blog. Lineage 1 was much much worse.. and I couldn't buy shoes or hair there either! ;P

Yes, at least here you can buy those things and have them stuffed promptly up your ass.

Game, sim, whatever you want to call it, it's still damn bad. It doesn't matter what it is or what you want to call it, the bottom line is it's terrible in sl and this is something no one can deny.

So they supposedly have one group doing this and another doing that. So what it means? It means nothing! Why? Because results are what's important and the results in sl are that it's becoming worse and worse then the time before that.

Just because they say they're doing this or doing that or spending time on this or that doesn't mean a thing. They can write a book about what they're doing and it will mean absolutely nothing if good results are not obtain at the end. It's all alot of talk and nothing else if what's needed to be accomplished isn't.

Having pretty looking blogs also don't mean a thing if they don't produce results and judging by what you see in sl day in and day out do you really think they're actually doing anything? Please!!!

Look at the feedback blogs they started, to get the players input on the voice system. What happen with that? If you went there, you'd see the many posts about how big and bad the chat box is and what did that accomplish? Nothing! They didn't change a thing and now you have this big ordinary screen space guzzling chat box which the majority hate and all that "feedback" was all for nothing.

I know all about Dell and their crappy company. I also played SWG from it's released and I know all about Soe and the many messed up things they did to their loyal fanbase. And although soe is nothing but the gaming worlds laughingstock you really would have a hard time deciding who would get this award for the worse between them and here at sl.

IMO SL does not even come close to being the worst.

That honor goes to Dark and Light and Farlan (the company that launched it). They are the poster child for how not to do things.

If you are seeking a slightly more objective assessment of the current choice de jour for the worst game, you could do worse than to look at the ratings on MMORPG.com.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/0

Dark and Light gets the second lowest score (and the lowest for a released game at 3.3 out of 10). This is a game whose publisher apparently stole part of the code used in the game, continued to bill people who subscribed, long after they quit and basically completely failed to live up to pretty much any of their claims.

Not only is SL not a game but a... an... no one knows for sure, it's also not being managed but... uhm... developed or so, no one knows that for sure either.

There's a bunch of folks kinda working on SL, working by the Tao of Linden; which says they may do what seems to be fun, paint the servers pink or whatever. In addition, there's another bunch of people pottering about inside of SL, randomly creating all sorts of content independent from each other.

Nietzsche would be delighted... pure chaos that will either give birth to a dancing star, or crash and burn like a stoned phoenix, making room for something better.

i have been in plenty of other games where the cries and pleads of the customers went unheard
where bugs went on for weeks that prevented raids from being able to be completed

where people were unable to complete epics for months because of other bugs the company new about

where petitions were handed in and never heard back on again
or answered as resolved but not

games changed so drasticaly that you logged in after the update/patch to not even recognize the game you had been playing for years

where people left by the hundreds and thousands and servers had to be combined so there were other people to play with

and we stuck it out paying 9.95 a month then 14.99 a month on and on for years

i came to sl because i could do things in here that i could do in no other game..yes there are issues..there are issues in all things on the internet some get fixed right away some get fixed later sometimes features are added before things get fixed
you either stick it out hoping everything you want gets fixed or you move on to something else

me ill be sticking it out so i can do the things in here ive been learning to do and enjoying my friends and family in here

In terms of customer support I'd agree but in general terms of management they're either doing something right or they've found a nice in the market whereby people will put up with it until it gets eclipsed.

I know about Dark and Light and just about every other game out there and I'll still say these guys are the worse.

I'm not playing any of those other games so I don't care about any of them. I'm playing this one so this is the one who gets it then. Now if I was playing any of those other games then I'd change it around but since I'm not although I've either most likely played them or have heard of them I'll concentrate on this one. Sl is the important one not something I'm not playing.

So you're saying it's the worst because you're here?

Well, there is an easy solution for that.

Now hold on there. Saying it's a sim instead of a game makes no sense. Describing it as a sim is only to describe the form inwhich the game takes. It's like saying "that's not a fruit, it's an apple!".
I think most people who feel so strongly about this do so because they misunderstand the term "game" and assume it means something trivial and unimportant, and that is why they object to the term.

Games are far from trivial. When a young lion learns to hunt, it does so through games; when a chimpanzee learns to use rudimentary tools to extract termites from a nest it does so through games; when a dog learns to interract with it's pack, it does so through games. A game is an activity the intention of which is to develope key skills; in this case, social rather than physical. It is a game, which manifests itself in the form of a sim.

Learn to embrace the term "game" as being a positive thing, and we can put this whole sorry age-old arguement to rest. "Game" doesn't have to have conotations of triviality.

What was the topic again?

Respectfully disagree. I object to "game" because a game is a structured system with a defined goal. At least, when people think of computer games in general, that's what they expect -- an objective, to be accomplished by strategy and tactics, or possibly a role-playing situation where they create a wholly fictitious and often fantastic character.

Thus, you have hordes of confused newbies coming into SL with no idea what the "point" is or what they are "supposed" to do. They heard SL was a "game," and so they expect (quite reasonably) to be able to figure out what is the objective and the rules of play. They come looking for structure and built-in purpose and do not understand that SL does not work that way.

Or they think that because it is a "game" there is something unfair if things don't work out as they expected: /327/b2/201719/1.html

I consider SL to be a platform, upon which any number of things can be done. It is open-ended and highly malleable to the individual user's desires and abilities.

SL is no more a "game" than the Web is. It certainly is *play*, meaning recreation and fun, but it is not a game.

Ok, Professor James, enough of your drivel and your own psycho-analysis, who cares?

You or whoever else who doesn't want to call it a game, that's your prerogative, knock yourself out calling it whatever floats your boat, who cares? What makes you so right and everyone else so wrong? So all the newbies as well as everyone else are just "hordes of confused" people because they think sl is a game? Hmm.. wonder where they all got that idea from?

It's advertised as a game, you'll find it in the "GAMES" forums all over the gaming worlds websites as well as in gaming magazines, ok? You buy it in gaming shops and, oh, I think you get the picture or maybe not, who cares if you don't here either.

I dislike people who think they know so much and try to look down and lecture others with their own bs.

I remember some of the more cantankerous RPG gaming forums, where they argue at peevish length that a number of popular role-playing games are NOT "true" RPG/role playing games, because you "only" play-act a role and don't have some artificial pre-defined system of stats/skills/hit-points/classes/levels/etc. That never made much sense to me, either.

Kids play games at recess, sometimes having no rules at all and sometimes they make-em-up-as-they-go.

Sims2 is normally classified as a "computer game" though the "objectives" of it are fairly .. murky. But still no less fun for many. As far as I am concerned, it is just as much an RPG as Baldur's Gate II and Fallout. And certainly just as much of a "game".

In all fairness to Elex he wrote a wonderful message. In no way am i making fun of him etc. What I did was to addon to this views to put more thoughts into his meaning.

Oh that's right! You were busy listing a lot of SL problems and declaring it to be the worst. I sidetracked your very helpful and insightful thread. I apologize. Please, carry on.

Actually, sarcasm aside, I do apologize ... I don't see how gripe-about-SL-thread #256 helps anything, but it is the thread you started and the eternal game/not-a-game debate is a different topic. So I should not have interjected it here.